Free Whatever Gods May Be by George P. Saunders Page A

of activity, all of them military.  Rockets, tanks and an occasional explosion lighted up the screens on Zolan's pilot console directly in front of him.  Zolan reached for a large, brown crescent-shaped flask in his lap and took a swig from it; clearly, what he was watching was something he could not do sober.
    He had been on Earth for one hundred years and this had been the worst day for him in that time.  He was watching a world preparing to kill itself.  The machines of war paraded before him on his monitors; a pageantry of mindless death-dispensing, the end of which only Zolan could determine to the minute --thanks to the Rover Starglide.
    "Forcing Hall aperture unwarranted and inadvisable.  Significant planetary and stellar perturbation registering within one square parsec." the ship's computer rattled on, as Zolan drunkenly focused on the scenes of war transpiring before him.
    "Keep it open, Rover.  We're getting the hell out of here," Zolan snapped, not looking up from the TV screens.
    "Recommend, Zolan, that Hall-Scan be terminated.  Normal liftoff procedures can be easily effected in compliance to Hall Travel Regulations.  Recommend, Zolan, we await scheduled Hall interphase to commence in 7.3 solar days."
    "No," Zolan said quietly, not looking up from his picture console, "I'm not going to wait a week." Zolan layed both hands on either side of the three miniature television screens, switching his attention quickly from one to the other.  His spectacles hung loosely over his bulbous nose, and he was forced to constantly push them back up where they belonged because of the sweat on his brow and face that made them slip occasionally.  Between reaching for his flask, fiddling with his bifocals, and staring intently at the battle scenes on the monitors, Zolan most closely resembled a bank clerk, completely absorbed in figures that were most unsatisfactory to consider.  An occasional snort of disgust and a shake of the head, only added to this bureaucratic demeanor.
    Zolan Rzzdik, Earth Observer to the Admiralty, was not a happy man.
    "A hundred years, Rover," Zolan said, looking about the enormous flight deck of his spacecraft and nodding, "that's a long time.  A century of hard work, and you know what's going to happen, Rover o l' boy?" Zolan asked in mock curiosity/ "They're going to blow it up:" he said through another disdainful chuckle.
    Finishing, he threw the container across the bridge, stood up, and began to pace back and forth.
    "It is an unexpected and unfortunate development, Zolan, and I share your sorrow," the Rover began diplomatically. "But it cannot be allowed to cloud your judgment.  If you force the Hall open this soon, you are jeopardizing the gravitational stability of an entire star system."
    "So what?" Zolan grunted, shoving his hands into his overalls, and staring at the Rover's computer panels like a naughty boy, "This is the only inhabited planet in the system.  Let it get tossed around by the Hall a little.  In a few hours, it's going to have the hell beaten out of it by these idiots."
    "Nevertheless, Zolan, forcing Hall aperture is unwarranted ..."
    Zolan snatched the flask lying on the floor and stormed out of the spacecraft and the barn that enclosed it into the hot desert air.
    The Rover could be a royal pain when it wanted to be and Zolan didn't need further aggravation than he already had today.  Of course, he realized that his ship was absolutely correct; to artificially breach the Hall, a natural celestial wormhole which allowed the enormous distances between stars to be brooked, was a dangerous maneuver and could theoretically cause much destruction in the vicinity of space in which it appeared.  Already, the sun in this system was bobbing up and down like a stellar buoy because of Zolan's impatient evocation of the warp, which in turn was affecting the orbital planes of its satellites - one of which Zolan had been living on for the past hundred years.
    But Zolan wanted